Dorothy Hamill Quotes

As a former college athlete, I know the importance of sports in the lives of women and girls, and I couldn't be more thrilled to join forces with NWSL and U.S. Soccer to ensure professional women athletes are elevated as the entire country can watch and be inspired by their strength and athleticism.

That's the awesome part. Little girls now have a chance to look up and see women playing soccer, basketball, softball and now hockey - and know they can win a gold medal, too.

Growing up, I looked up to major league baseball players, and now these young women have amazing, incredible women all across the board, from swimming to gymnastics to softball to basketball.

I'm enormously proud that I can do a deal with the National Women's Soccer League to showcase the power and passion of women athletes as positive role models, not only for my daughter but also for my son.

If you can't see it, you can't be it. It's just having those brilliant women break out and do something - then other girls can say, 'I can do it, too!'

All our lives are enriched by the leadership and excellence and confidence of female athletes, whether the Mia Hamms and Maya Moores we know or the field hockey, lacrosse and track and field athletes we do not necessarily know.

I had very supportive parents that made the way for me, even at a time when there were very few women - no women, really; maybe two or three women - and very few, fewer than that, African-American women heading in this direction, so there were very few people to look up to. You just had to have faith.

Femininity and sport can go together.

In the seventies we had to make it acceptable for people to accept girls and women as athletes. We had to make it okay for them to be active. Those were much scarier times for females in sports.

Training of female athletes is so new that the limits of female possibility are still unknown.

I think it's great that young girls have the WNBA to look up to now.

I have a great deal of respect for any women that will enter the world of little boys of sports.

In everything I do, I like to set the idea for girls that they can do anything. I was really moved by Hillary Clinton's speech when she lost the election - she didn't want young girls to feel like it wasn't possible and wanted them to know a female president will eventually happen. That's important.

I believe that athletes - especially female athletes in the world's leading sport for women - should serve as role models.

Some women can probably be Nicki Minaj and Cardi B, but some of us can't.

I think obviously the media need to help promote the game and make it bigger so the younger girls have women role models to look up to and try and aspire to instead of just male footballers.

To see how far female wrestling has come is just inspiring and incredible.

More girls are taking up sport and realising it's a legitimate option for them to forge a career.

When I was a kid, the women like Mia Hamm and Brandi Chastain were paving the way for female players in the States. Things like that are important so girls realise there is a future for them if they want to play. It is something they can aspire to, to be not just a hobby.

Women sportspersons like Krishna Poonia and Seema Antil are role models for Haryanvi women.

In my opinion, Jackie is the greatest female athlete ever.

I don't think there's anything that is a greater area of discrimination against women today than the fact that nowhere in the world is there a female role model in team sports that more than half of a general audience would recognize.

Women need opportunity and encouragement. If a girl can climb mountains, she can do anything positive within her field of work.

There's nothing masculine about being competitive. There's nothing masculine about trying to be the best at everything you do, nor is there anything wrong with it. I don't know why a female athlete has to defend her femininity just because she chooses to play sports.

Often we women are risk averse. I needed the push. Now, more than ever, young women need more seasoned women to provide that encouragement, to take a risk, to go for it. Once a glass ceiling is broken, it stays broken.